Footage Released of US Police Shooting Innocent Man 9 Times
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Police in New Jersey released footage Tuesday showing the police shooting of a black man with his hands up.
The dash camera footage shows what appears to be a routine traffic stop ending with police firing nine rounds, killing Jerame Reid Dec. 30, 2014.
Initially, officers Braheme Days and Roger Worley in Bridgeton pulled over the vehicle Reid was traveling in for allegedly running a red light. Reid was sitting in the front passenger seat.
The situation suddenly escalates when one officer claims to see a firearm in the vehicle.
“I'm going to shoot you! Dude, you're going to be f###ing dead. I'm telling you, you reach for something, you're going to be f###ing dead,” Days shouted at Reid.
Reid responded by stating, “I ain't even reaching for nothing, bro. I ain't go no reason to reach.”
At one point during the ensuing two-minute standoff, the officer appeared to remove a handgun from the vehicle, while continuing to threaten to kill Reid if he moved.
“Don't get out of the car,” Worley stated.
Reid responded, “I'm getting out.”
When Reid stepped out of the car with his hands raised, the officers open fire.
According to The Associated Press, Days was among a group of officers that arrested Reid in 2014 for a slew of charges including drug possession. Previously, Reid spent 13 years behind bars for opening fire on a trio of state troopers as a teenager.
Local prosecutors are investigating Reid's death, though civil rights groups say the investigation should be conducted by the state attorney general, citing concerns over impartiality.
“In light of the dash cam video released, the fact that Jerame Reid was fatally killed without being a threat to any officer involved in the shooting, and the fact that his hand were up and he clearly was unarmed, we are going to demand that the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office immediately transfer jurisdiction to a non-conflicted law enforcement agency,” said Walter Hudson from the National Awareness Alliance.
“The video speaks for itself,” Hudson said.
The release of the footage comes amid ongoing national outrage over a series of high profile police killings of unarmed black men and boys.
Civil rights groups expressed renewed anger Wednesday when the U.S. Department of Justice announced it will not pursue federal civil rights charges against Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson, Missouri, police officer who shot and killed unarmed black teen Michael Brown Aug. 9, 2014.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will now have the final say on whether the American justice system will close the case against Wilson. Last November, a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict Wilson for killing Brown.
Holder has said that he plans to close both the civil rights investigation of Wilson and the investigation of the 2012 shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman before leaving his office next week.
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